This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.

December 19, 2012

EPA Awards $675,000 to Students in Sustainable Tech Competition

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on December 4 awarded a total of $675,000 in grants to 45 college teams in its "People, Prosperity and the Planet" annual student design competition. Each grant, which awarded up to $15,000 per team, will be applied toward designing and developing sustainable technologies to help protect health and the environment while promoting economic development.

For example, a team from Southern Polytechnic State University in Georgia will work on increasing photovoltaic panel energy output by having solar cells track the sun. Another team from Johns Hopkins University will study the integration of waste treatment with algal cultivation for aquaculture and renewable biofuel production.

After eight months of work on their projects, the teams will bring their designs to Washington, D.C. to participate in EPA's National Sustainable Design Expo, scheduled for April 20-21, 2013. A panel of scientific experts will judge the projects, and winners receive an award and recommendation for a second phase grant of up to $90,000 to further develop their designs and prepare them for the marketplace. See theEPA press release.